Re: Racism in San Diego County Housing and Community Development Services.
On February 25, 2020, the San Diego Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) will present evidence to the Board of Supervisors of a racist extremist currently acting as a “housing specialist” for San Diego County Housing and Community Development Services. The San Diego County Housing and Community Development Services runs Section 8 housing for San Diego County.
The San Diego Housing and Community Development office is designed to help those who need public assistance. Because of America’s long history of racism, Section 8 housing overwhelmingly serves communities of color and other disadvantaged communities. Discovering that someone in a position of power harbors a deep hatred for the very people he is supposed to help, is incredibly distressing. Persons seeking governmental assistance are among our most vulnerable citizens, and they should not need to fear hatred from very County employees hired to serve them.
During public comment, the NAACP will present a series of facebook posts from this County employee, showing shockingly anti-immigrant, anti-latinx, anti-islamic, anti-African American sentiments. Such attitudes should not and cannot be held by someone who is in a position to approve or deny welfare benefits.
The NAACP already has evidence, in the form of complaint to the NAACP legal redress committee, that this employee is using his position to intimidate people in need, particularly people of color. In addition, we know from this complainant that at least one supervisor is aware of this employee’s facebook posts and views. The question is why this employee remains in a position of power.
The NAACP San Diego Branch demands:
An investigation into hiring practices that allowed a racist to be hired as a housing specialist, including who hired him and the record of racial complaints filed against him.
An investigation to determine how widespread extremist views are in Housing and Community Development Services.
A re-evaluation of all the Section 8 cases to ensure that people received the assistance they are entitled to under the law.
The County take steps to protect vulnerable people by ensuring that this employee is no longer in a position of power over people of color, immigrants, and members of religions of which he disapproves.
Francine Maxwell, First Vice President and Acting President NAACP San Diego Branch
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Founded in 1919 after a visit by renowned author, activist and NAACP co-founder, W.E.B. DuBois, the NAACP San Diego Branch is celebrating a century of standing sentry over the civil rights of the people of San Diego. If you need more information about the NAACP San Diego Branch, please visit sandiegonaacp.org/presskit
The California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training will meet right here in San Diego on Thursday, February 13th.
This Commission, as you might guess, sets the standards for behavior and training for police throughout the State. These standards are crucial, as they are the official guide to how police are to behave.
Bills like the landmark (and long overdue) AB-392 on the permissible use of force are filtered through this Commission before being taught to officers. This is your opportunity to see the Commission in action.
9:00 am Thursday, February 13, 2020 DoubleTree by Hilton San Diego Mission Valley 7450 Hazard Center Drive (619) 297-5466
A 16-year-old young man was suspended a week ago from Mater Dei High School because of his hairstyle. While that suspension has been rescinded, it never should have been allowed to happen at all. Diocese spokesman Kevin Eckery said that “the matter has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction;” we are here to tell Mr Eckery that the matter most certainly has not been resolved to our satisfaction.
The Diocese of San Diego is a private institution and thus Mater Dei High School is allowed to make its own rules within certain limits. Religious organizations are furthermore given latitude by our government on issues of faith and conscience. This latitude is not extend to illegal discrimination, nor is hairstyle a matter touched on by the Catholic faith.
Hairstyle may seem like a small matter at first glance to the lily-white and all-male leadership of the Diocese of San Diego. What they may not recognize is the cultural importance of hairstyle. While Catholicism is mum on the issue, sects of Islam, Judaism and even Christanity regulate hairstyle. Furthermore, African-Americans, sadly remaining suffering as we do from so much discrimination, use our hairstyles as a way to remain in touch with our long cultural heritage.
We therefore believe that the Mater Dei High School’s action consists of illegal discrimination based on race, and is not a protected exercise of their religion. We might have expected the Diocese of San Diego, whose all-male leaders wear dresses, to have a little more flexibility and understanding toward long-standing cultural norms. We also might have expected the Diocese of San Diego, given certain practices in their own culture that have come to light in recent years, to keep its distance from the heads and bodies of young men in its care.
We demand the Diocese of San Diego to do better, and we stand ready to assist any efforts they make to train themselves and their employees in the African-American experience, explicit/implicit bias, and cultural sensitivity. We are celebrating a century of standing sentry over the civil rights of San Diego residents, and we are well-equipped to help rectify this matter.
Francine Maxwell, First Vice President and Acting President NAACP San Diego Branch
Keeping track of memberships, keeping the Branch fully informed, and managing the money may not be the most glamorous ways to advocate for Civil Rights and an end to racial discrimination, but they are crucial to getting the work done.
The ideal Assistant Secretary would:
Have a good mind for detail
Be proficient with email
Be familiar with Google Drive, Docs, Forms and Sheets
Be familiar with Adobe Acrobat or other PDF software
Have a high degree of integrity
Have good customer service skills
Be available the 1st and 3rd Thursday evenings of each month
Have an additional 4+ hours per week to devote to the vital work of the NAACP
Have their own laptop
The ideal Assistant Treasurer would:
Have a good mind for detail
Have a basic understanding of bookkeeping
Be familiar with spreadsheets and QuickBooks
Have a high degree of integrity
Have good customer service skills
Be available the 1st and 3rd Thursday evenings of each month
Have an additional 4+ hours per month to devote to the vital work of the NAACP
Have their own laptop
Assisting at one of these positions would not only be of great service to the NAACP San Diego Branch, it would be an excellent opportunity to see if you wanted to run for Secretary or Treasurer in our November 2020 elections. Our Treasurer has already notified us he will not run for reëlection.
We heartily agree that Dr Weber deserves the honor of being the Union-Tribune’s San Diegan of 2019. She continues to deliver on legislation that helps all Californians, and advances the cause of racial equality. AB-392 is only the latest such bill; 2019 also saw the first reports from the SDPD from AB-953, Dr Weber’s Racial Identity and Profiling Act. We are very proud to call Dr Weber a life member of the NAACP San Diego Branch.
The Union Tribune is highly complimentary of AB-392 and the process of negotiation and passage, which is gratifying. Sadly, if unsurprisingly, the article falls short in other ways.
We find it insulting that, unlike past honorees, Dr Weber’s photo was not used, and instead she is represented by a cartoon. African-Americans are not cartoons, they are real people. Individual U-T reporters seem to understand this (look at Don Boomer and Eduardo Contreras’ wonderful photos of Shelby Jacobs and Robert L. Moore in Pam Kragen’s article.) Sadly, the Editorial Board made a different choice.
Had the cartoon been the only insensitivity, we might have let it pass. Sadly, the text is lacking as well. Much is made of Dr Weber’s ability to get AB-392 passed, but there is almost no acknowledgement (save in the otherwise-problematic cartoon) of the reason AB-392 is so desperately needed by San Diegans. Black and brown people are still so much more likely to lose their lives by police violence; that’s the driving force behind AB-392 and AB-953. Does the U-T admit this? No.
In fact, rather than point to the recent evidence that the SDPD is in need of fundamental reform, such as might someday be delivered by Dr Weber’s work, the U-T chooses to pander to the deniers of racism by referring to shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, 5 years ago, as “justified.” We wonder — is the U-T editorial board deliberately trying to have it both ways; to honor Dr Weber on the surface while signaling underneath to the racists? Or is the problem one of implicit bias on the part of the Board?
In summary, we are glad to see Dr Weber’s resourcefulness and political skill honored, but greatly saddened to see the causes slighted to which she has devoted her life: the full personhood, safety, and well-being of the most vulnerable San Diegans.
Sincerely,
Francine Maxwell, First Vice President NAACP San Diego Branch
In 2020, NAACP San Diego continues fighting racial segregation through its lawsuit against San Diego Housing Commission.
The lawsuit challenges SDHC’s discriminatory and segregationist policy of setting the Section 8 voucher levels prohibitively low in predominantly white neighborhoods. SDHC’s policy effectively steers families with Section 8 – disproportionately racial minorities – to segregated, high poverty neighborhoods with lower performing schools and fewer employment opportunities.
SDHC initially responded to the lawsuit with a claim that its setting of payment standards is “protected activity” made in furtherance of SDHC’s “right of free speech or petition.” SDHC, which is a government entity, claimed that if NAACP San Diego’s lawsuit was allowed to move forward, it would “chill” SDHC’s “valid exercise of the constitutional rights of freedom of speech and petition.”
In its initial response, SDHC also alleged that the lawsuit was not brought “solely in the public interest” because the relief the lawsuit seeks – to enjoin SDHC from perpetuating racial segregation – will not benefit the public but will benefit only non-white Section 8 recipients. SDHC’s position reflected a disturbing misunderstanding of how segregation adversely impacts all members of the community, not just racial minorities. SDHC’s position also reflected a flagrant misunderstanding of how its own program works since the relief sought will benefit all voucher recipients, not only racial minorities.
In addition, in its initial response, SDHC claimed that its CEO’s repeated use of “social engineering” to derisively describe an Obama-era desegregation policy could not be used in the lawsuit to show discriminatory intent. SDHC claimed that its CEO’s statements were protected speech.
In November, the court held a hearing on SDHC’s free speech defense and a demurrer it had filed. The court rejected SDHC’s free speech arguments, finding that NAACP San Diego’s lawsuit is brought in the public interest, and the statute protecting free speech does not apply to SDHC’s actions. The Court also rejected the vast majority of SDHC’s arguments regarding whether the lawsuit could move forward based on state and federal fair housing and civil rights law. The Court gave NAACP San Diego the opportunity to include additional facts (data) regarding how SDHC’s policy disproportionately adversely impacts racial minorities. NAACP San Diego immediately requested the data from SDHC, but SDHC is still refusing to provide its data.
We read with interest the November 18th response from Jeffrey Jordon to the April 22nd recommendations from the Citizen’s Advisory Board on Police/Community Relations. We understand that the SDPD will be explaining its response at the December 16th meeting of the CAB.
There is a lot that we don’t like in the SDPD’s response. We might, for example, have complained about it taking SEVEN MONTHS to respond at all. We might have complained that the response was sent just before the Thanksgiving Holiday, when it was most likely to go ignored. It’s possible that we would have complained about the quote that was put in Shelley Zimmerman’s mouth, which was inaccurate and does not convey the evasive words she actually used.
We might have asked for a different response than “inapplicable” to the request to reduce staffing of the Gang Suppression Unit. We might have remarked at the Gang Suppression Unit being renamed the “Special Operations Unit” when it might more properly have been renamed the “Harassment of Black and Brown Youth and Adult Unit.”
We might have asked for a more meaningful response to calling for a moratorium on “pretext stops” (also known as “Driving-While-Black Stops”) than having you quote court cases that indicate the practice is legal, however counterproductive and oppressive it may be.
We might have been incredulous at the SDPD’s disingenuous inability to understand what a “Beat” system is.
We might, in fact, have gone on to comment and the second half of the response, which is as full of defensiveness, obstructionism and mendacity as the first half.
However, we see no need to refute the SDPD’s self-justification paragraph by paragraph and word by word. Instead, we would like to point the Mayor, Chief Nisleit, and the TRUE author of the response, City Attorney Mara Elliot, to the recent report by Campaign Zero.
This report can be found at policescorecard.org/sandiego. It is not a pretty thing, and we think it more proper to comment on it than on the latest accountability whitewash to issue from 1200 Third Avenue. Here are some excerpts:
San Diego police were 44% more likely to search Latinx people and 133% more likely to search black people than white people during a routine traffic stop – especially for equipment violations.
Chief Nisleit, your “anti-bias” training is not working.
San Diego police and sheriff’s departments were more likely to search black and Latinx people during routine traffic stops, they were less likely to find contraband during these searches. This suggests both departments are over-searching people in general, with little to no public safety benefit, while engaging in biased policing towards communities of color in particular.
Chief Nisleit, your pretext stops are not contributing to public safety.
[B]lack people were 4.1x more likely than white people to be arrested by SDPD for drug possession, despite research showing black and white people use and sell drugs at similar rates. Both agencies made as many arrests for drug possession alone as they did for all Part 1 Violent and Property Crimes combined.
Excuse us; Chief Nisleit, your biased pretext stops are not contributing to public safety.
Chief Nisleit and the SDPD are justifiably proud of the reduction in San Diego of violent crimeand we admit to being gratified that San Diego is one of the safest large cities for most of the population. We wonder, however, if those statistics need to be adjusted based on violent crime committee BY the SDPD in the normal course of their duties. For example:
San Diego police used force at a higher rate than 95% of California law enforcement agencies in our analysis.
The San Diego Police Department is a source of violence in our City.
Between 2016-2018, San Diego Police Department and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department were more likely to use force against black people, even after controlling for arrest rates. … San Diego police were 172% more likely to use force against people perceived to have mental disabilities during a stop …. This suggests there are serious issues regarding [the SDPD’s] interactions with black people and people with disabilities.
Naturally, the violence Chief Nisleit oversees is worse against black folks and disabled folks.
On average, when SDPD uses force against black people they use a level of force 1.3x more severe than when using force against white people.
Chief Nisleit, not only is violence more frequent, but it is also more severe when African-Americans are involved.
Now, here is something else we agree with:
When civilians came forward to report police misconduct, it rarely led to accountability in San Diego. Of 226 civilian complaints of San Diego Police Department conduct in 2016 and 2017, only 11% were ruled in favor of civilians. Moreover, complaints alleging the most serious misconduct were never sustained. For example, of 21 civilian complaints of police discrimination, 75 use of force complaints and 2 complaints alleging criminal misconduct, none of these complaints were sustained.
Everyone except the Mayor and the SDPD have been calling for the CRB to be replaced with a truly independent citizen body pushing for accountability. Of course, the SDPD sees the CRB with the same rose-colored glasses through which it views its own conduct.
The Campaign Zero report, for which we are very grateful, goes on to make some common-sense recommendations. By and large, we concur with their recommendations, as well as the recommendations made by the CAB. While we will be vocal about suggesting solutions at the right time, there really is no point in recommending medicine to a department that sees itself as healthy.
We call on Mayor Faulconer and Chief Nisleit, not to mention City Attorney Mara Elliott, to finally admit that the SDPD is in need of a fundamental new direction and fundamental reform. Once they admit they have a problem, we stand ready to collaborate with them in devising and implementing solutions, as well as convincing our community to give the SDPD another chance, once the reforms are in place.
We doubt that we will get there with the current administration. We hope this coming election brings someone into the Mayor’s office who actually cares about people who are not wealthy and white. We look forward to a productive relationship with such a Mayor.
Francine Maxwell, First Vice President NAACP San Diego Branch
2-hour telecast to celebrate the biggest achievements in black culture.
New York, NY (Monday, November 25, 2019) – The NAACP and BET Networks announced a broadcast partnership to air the 51st NAACP Image Awards. The telecast will take place from Pasadena, California and will air on BET Networks for the first time ever. The announcement was made today by NAACP National Board of Directors Chairman Leon W. Russell, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson, President of BET Networks Scott Mills and Executive Vice-President, Specials, Music Programming & Music Strategy Connie Orlando. The NAACP Image Awards is the preeminent event celebrating the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of television, music, literature, and film and also honors individuals or groups who promote social justice through creative endeavors.
“We’re proud to partner with BET Networks to showcase the incredible breadth of Black excellence in television, film, music, and literature, and to bring awareness to the social justice and economic empowerment work of the NAACP,” said Johnson. “Through its diverse platforms, BET delivers culturally enriching and entertaining content to a wide and multigenerational audience. As we head into a critical 2020 election and Census, the collaboration with BET will be critical to reaching our shared communities.”
“The NAACP is vitally important, and BET Networks shares the organization’s commitment to our community and social impact,” added Mills. “With the NAACP’s half-century of history acknowledging the achievements of African Americans across entertainment and activism, this partnership allows BET to further our mission to entertain, engage and empower our viewers by delivering this cultural pillar to the communities we serve. We’re thrilled to welcome the NAACP Image Awards home to BET.”
Karen Boykin-Towns, NAACP National Board of Directors Vice-Chairman is the newly appointed Chairman of the NAACP Image Awards Planning Committee and will provide strategic guidance and leadership. Eris Sims, Chief of Staff will oversee all NAACP Image Awards events and activities.
“We are excited that two storied organizations, NAACP and BET, are partnering to cultivate innovative approaches to our work and to deliver a transformative experience that inspires and empowers the Black community. This is a natural partnership and one which aligns with our strategic focus,” said Boykin-Towns. “We are confident that the NAACP Image Awards will continue to grow in both impact and legacy.”
One of the most iconic annual celebrations of black excellence, the NAACP Image Awards draws a crowd of the biggest and brightest stars in Hollywood. Previous years attendees include Oprah Winfrey, Will Smith, Taraji P. Henson, Viola Davis, Gabrielle Union, Kerry Washington, Anthony Anderson, Sterling K. Brown, Mandy Moore, Halle Berry, Common, Dwayne Johnson, Steve Harvey, Audra Day, John Legend, Lena Waithe, Tracee Ellis Ross, David Oyelowo, Laverne Cox, Octavia Spencer, Issa Rae, Trevor Noah, Terry Crews, Yara Shahidi, Danai Gurira, Jacob Latimore, Jay Pharoah, Jemele Hill, Josh Gad, Loretta Devine, Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Meta Golding, Michael Smith, Tyler James Williams, Ava DuVernay, Chadwick Boseman, and many more.
“It is our honor to partner with the NAACP as the exclusive broadcast partner of the Image Awards, one of the most influential Award Shows in the black community,” said Orlando. “We will celebrate and acknowledge the excellence and achievements of African-Americans in television, music, arts and give special recognition to the artists that have thrilled us and shaped the past the year in black culture. As we head into our 40th anniversary, it is only right to start off 2020 with this monumental partnership and bring the legacy of NAACP Image Awards to BET.”
Nominations for the “51st NAACP Image Awards” will be announced on January 9, 2020. Additional key dates are as follows:
Dec 6: Submissions close Dec 20: Nominating Committee Voting Opens Jan 03: Nominating Committee Voting Closes Jan 09: Online Public Voting Opens Feb 07: Online Public Voting Closes Feb 21: Non-Televised Awards Dinner
About NAACP: Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities. You can read more about the NAACP’s work and our six “Game Changer” issue areas at naacp.org.
About BET Networks: BET Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B), is the nation’s leading provider of quality entertainment, music, news, and public affairs television programming for the African-American audience. The primary BET channel reaches more than 90 million households and can be seen in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, and sub-Saharan Africa. BET is the dominant African-American consumer brand with a diverse group of business extensions: BET.com, a leading Internet destination for Black entertainment, music, culture and news; BET HER, a 24-hour entertainment network targeting the African-American Woman; BET Music Networks – BET Jams, BET Soul and BET Gospel; BET Home Entertainment; BET Live, BET’s growing festival business; BET Mobile, which provides ringtones, games and video content for wireless devices; and BET International, which operates BET around the globe.
